In Fall 2020, 1270 college students in 22 sections of an online psychology course completed the first of eight online homework assignments. The data visualizations below explore whether students’ completion of each of the remaining seven assignments varied by three characteristics of the sections: enrollment (regular vs. large), number of synchronous class meetings (zero, one, or two), and instructor status (graduate student vs. faculty).
Of the 22 sections, 6 sections had large enrollments (enrollment > = 119). The remaining sections had regular enrollments (enrollment < = 67).
Fig. 1 compares the percentage of students in regular and large sections that completed each homework. The percentage of students who completed each assignment decreased more steeply in large sections than regular sections.
Note: Hovering over each bar will show the number of students.
Sections were assigned to meet synchronously zero, once, or twice a week. All large sections met twice a week. To examine if homework completion varied by the number of weekly synchronous meetings, I only used students enrolled in regular sections (enrollment < = 67).
Fig. 2 compares the percentage of students in regular sections with zero, one, or two weekly meetings that completed each homework. Starting with HW4, students in sections with more meetings were more likely to complete each assignment.
Of the 22 sections, 11 were taught by graduate students. The remaining sections were taught by full-time or adjunct faculty.
Fig. 3 compares the percentage of students in graduate student and faculty-taught sections that completed each homework. For most homeworks, the difference in completion by instructor status was minimal (5 or less percentage points).